Well-Swept Yard

  Speech Written by Daughter of Tenant Farmer Let's begin here. Spring 1927. The young woman is a junior, probably rising senior. Her subject: 

Origin: 1740–5 0; inter-  + act interact. Dictionary.com. Dictionary.com Unabridged . Random House, Inc. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/interact (accessed: June 13, 2012). I like the division because it emphasizes the "act" part. The first time a taught an online class with Blackboard I learned a couple of things about interactivity. First, I had a student that had taken a class from me before. He sat at the back of the room and never said a word. I noticed that he was quite active on the discussion board. When I saw him at an art opening I remarked that he was more active on the discussion board than he had ever been in the classroom. I asked him why. His response was short. "I don't like speaking in public." The second thing I learned was by accident. I had to be out of town for a conference and I posted an announcement telling the class that I would have limited access to the Internet but that they should continue the week's

I met today with a a summer general education class. I like gen ed classes. They provide the greatest potential for reaching students. They also present challenges when a goodly number of the seats are occupied by students who have a commitment to a strict path to a degree that satisfies a yearning for money or another life desire. With first-year students a discussion of what could happen to the in four years' residence. For so many students the first year of college is the thirteenth grade, something they do because a college degree is what comes next. Parents think so, friends are on board, somebody told them that a college degree is worth money in the world of work. Do not overlook the prospect of independence and fun. Ask about any one of the usual reasons, ask if that is what put them here, and one notices a hesitation, as though the student is thinking about the reason for going to college for the first time. In thinking about the usual answers some students exhibit some

Eleventh grade. A tough one. Acne. So on. Eleventh grade: English and PE classes and other classes I don't remember at the moment. English class was into verb conjugation. PE class was not into exercise because it was my turn for locker room duty--caged room with baskets to hold student stuff. So. Back to English. We had a book with lots of examples of conjugations. Each example was presented in two columns, one singulars and one plurals. Hour after hour I stared at all the examples and tried to learn the conjugations. Memorizing all the examples was tough. I would stare, close my eyes and try to remember what the conjugations looked like, and then open my eyes to check. I wrote the examples over and over. I was making progress. But. Test. An English test over these conjugations was coming up. In fact, on the particular day I am remembering the test was later that day. While protecting the PE baskets I kept pouring over the illustrations and I knew that I was making progress